An apparatus of this type is described in German Offenlegungsschrift No. 33 40 183. A mounting for the test computer in the form of a manipulator is described in the earlier German patent application Nos. P 36 15 941.7 and P 36 15 942.5 and also in EP-OS 0 102 217.
The testing apparatus known hitherto is distinguished by a high operating speed. Its input magazine, set obliquely, has a plurality of magazine channels and is displaceable transversely to the magazine channels in order to move a selected magazine channel into the unloading position. The latter moves the components it contains to a fixed separating device consisting of a conveyor belt with a light barrier. The separated components then drop into a test channel leading to a testing head. This has finger-like spring members connected to the test computer. After the testing process each tested component drops into a so-called sorting shuttle which is displaceable transversely to the magazine channels of the fixed output magazine and which unloads the component, depending on the test result, into one of the magazine channels. Here, too, the magazine channels are disposed obliquely. Filling of the magazine channels of the input magazine and emptying of the filled magazine channels of the output magazine is achieved by placing magazine rods on to the inputs of the magazine channels of the input magazine, or on to the outputs of the magazine channels of the output magazine, for the duration of the filling or unloading period. The testing apparatus is located in a separate casing and is an independent device. The test computer is similarly housed in a separate box-shaped casing. Since, on one hand, it is very heavy and the boxshaped casing is unwieldy, and on the other hand, the connection between test computer and testing head of the testing apparatus has to be made by corresponding plugs of plug contacts located on both devices which are susceptible to mechanical damage, the casing of the test computer is fixed in a manipulator. The manipulator is provided with a weight counterbalancing system and allows the test computer's casing to move in several degrees of freedom, so that the plug contacts of both devices can be engaged safely and without damage.
Since the known test apparatus was developed to achieve a high operating speed and to classify components found to be faulty as precisely as possible, it is obvious that this device calls for correspondingly great technical resources and is consequently expensive.